What equipment is needed for gold panning? Purchase inexpensive and easy to use gold panning equipment, pan kits and other prospecting supplies below
Unlike many activities that require a sizable investment, gold panning and prospecting is very inexpensive. Most of the tools or equipment needed for gold panning are often found around the home.
Basic gold panning equipment:
1. Small bottle. For storing the your gold. Almost any small bottle will do so long as it can close tightly and is water tight. 35 mm film containers work well and don't break. Glass or plastic gold vials are available from our prospecting equipment section and come in a variety of sizes from 2 DWT (pennyweight) to several ounces. They work well for estimating how much gold you have accumulated and for showing off your gold (tip add water or gylcerin to make it show larger).
2. Crevice or Sniping Tools: Paint brushes, slotted screwdriver, tablespoon, garden trowel and/or commercial crevice tools. These tools help clean out the crevasses to get out all of the good material. Remember, the gold is very dense so it will settle to the bottom of the cracks and crevices. Clean up these spots after heavy water flow and you'll probably find gold - sometimes alot. Bring along a crow bar or pry bar to break open cracks inthe bedrock to find untouched and unworked virgin gold panning material.
3. Shovel, pick and trowel. A mini pick shovel combo is available here for just a few dollars. Keep one in the car with your gold pan. You never knoww here you might find a good spot to try some gold panning.
4. Utility bucket. A 5-Gallon bucket is super handy for carrying and organizing your collection of tools. It also can be used to transport the materials to be panned. These are very inexpensive or even free at some stores. OCncetrate your material down to jus tthe heavy black sands and take it home with you. Use your time on the river to work the gold pan. Use your time at home to get all the fine gold out of your concetrates.
5. Magnet. May be used to remove magnetic black sand in a plastic pan. Makes clean up a lot easier. See our gold magnets in the prosecting tools section for top quality and proven designs.
6. Optional items include a classifier or screen, sniffer bottle or suction tweezers. Sniffer bottles (also called snuffer bottles or sucker bottles) are very handy for removing even very fine gold from your pan. They can be purchased here for a couple of dollars along with your gold pans.
7. Gold pan - lightweight plastic is best. Deep riffles or gravity traps help to hold the gold. Avoid steel pans as they are heavy, harder to use, and can rust out. Purchase a 10.5 inch black gold pan for as little as $3.50 - very portable - keep it in your car. Upgrade to a 12" Keene green plastic gold pan for higher production and even better recovery of gold.
That's it for your basic gold panning equipment. Not much of an investment and you can get started right away.
Now that you have tried out some basic gold panning equipment - why not take the next step and try out a gold sluice. Sluice boxes are very easy to use, are available in a range of sizes, and can be very productive - you can move much more material with a sluice than in a gold pan. We have a complete sluice kit available here for around $49. It includes a portable sluice box, instructional video and more. Have fun!
